Owing to the high sensitivity of optical disc surfaces to finger prints or scratches, it is of the utmost importance to handle optical discs with the greatest care and, therefore, place in or remove these optical discs from player/recorder apparatus loading mechanisms by holding them by their edge and center hole only.
Existing loading mechanisms for discs of different size are so cumbersome that their mechanisms cannot readily be incorporated in a slim pivotally mounted loading door, making the adaptation to a conventional single size record player rather difficult if not impossible.
In order to overcome such drawbacks, it is a principle object of the invention to provide a simple, reliable, easy-to-operate mechanism which is particularly adaptable to recorder/player units where the loading and unloading of discs is provided by means of a pivoting door.
Another object of the invention is to provide such a loading mechanism for discs of at least two different diameters which does not increase the door thickness substantially, so that the loading mechanism may be incorporated in existing "single diameter" recorder player units without requiring significant structural or size alterations.
A further object of the invention is to provide a loading mechanism which is adaptable to existing laser pick-ups of different translation paths during the disc playback operation.
Another object of the invention is to use the existing parts, commonly found in any optical disc player/recorder, like the disc clamping device, in order to reach the objectives of the present invention without adding redundant, encumbering and expensive new parts.
Another object of the invention is to associate and synchronize these existing parts such as the disc clamping device with a translating device for discs of at least two different diameters in order to ease the loading and unloading operation. In order to be operable by users, the mechanism of this invention should not provide any difficulty in use.